


Drowning in Sorrow

by SpacePenguin11



Category: The Brittas Empire
Genre: Angst, F/M, Whump, hero!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24842896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpacePenguin11/pseuds/SpacePenguin11
Summary: Gordon Brittas comes to the rescue of the woman he adores.
Relationships: Gordon Brittas/Laura Lancing
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	Drowning in Sorrow

**Author's Note:**

> M rating for a naughty word.
> 
> Set series 5, straight after Laura tells Brittas that she is leaving for America.

Gordon Brittas sighed as he picked up one of the many piles of paperwork strewn across his desk. He’d completely lost track of what he was doing.  
The mountains of paperwork were a mixture of invoices, holiday requests from staff members, wage slips.  
In his brain though, they had all just merged into one.

Because of her.

A little piece of his heart broke that day she had come in and announced her news.  
The news that she was leaving, that she was leaving him behind.  
Leaving him behind in a car crash of a marriage, with a woman who didn’t love him, and whom he didn’t love.

Leaving with HIM, carrying HIS child.

‘Why can’t you just be staying here with me? Why can’t it be my child that you’re carrying?”

Just lately he had been making attempts to impress her, all pathetic he knew.  
He’d taken to wearing his grey suit to work, switching up his cologne to more closely resemble Michael’s. Slicking his hair back with insane amounts of hair gel.

Of course none of it worked.  
How could it?

‘She’s besotted with him, Gordon, and nothing you do will ever change that.’

He took in a deep breath, her perfume was still hanging in the air from where she had come to see him that morning.  
He had been thinking about asking her what the brand was, so that he could do the pathetic teenage thing of spraying it on his pillow before he went to sleep.

‘You’re a joke, Gordon.’

There was a knock at the door, and his heart did a little somersault.

“Come in,” he said eagerly.

But it was only Tim.

“What do you want?” snapped the manager angrily.

“I just wanted to let you know that Laura and I have swapped duties. I’m now supervising the gym and she’s doing my pool duty.”

‘Why?”

“Well her morning sickness is really troubling her, and she finds swimming helps it.”

“That’s fine,” said Brittas.

‘Morning sickness...pregnancy...his baby not yours.’

Watching Tim leave, his thoughts were once again pulled back to the woman of his dreams.

‘I could give her a much better life, I know I could. Ok so I’m not filthy rich..but I love her, a thousand times more than he does, I know.  
He cheated on her. How can you love someone if you’ve cheated on them?  
He doesn’t deserve her! He doesn’t even deserve to breathe the same air as her. And I’ll bet he’s a selfish lover!  
I would do anything to please her! I’d put her pleasure before my own, always! I could satisfy her in ways he could only dream of.  
But I won’t ever get the chance will I?? Because of that arrogant weasel of a man, who believes he is worthy of her love? Worthy of her beautiful body!!?”

He looked down and realised that he had well and truly obliterated the stress ball that Colin had lent to him earlier when he had noticed the manager looking frazzled.

He tossed it in the bin with a grunt.

Suddenly, the man in question came bursting into the room.

“Colin??”

“No time to knock I’m afraid, Mr Brittas! It’s Laura!”

“What about her??”

“She slipped and hit her head when she was getting into the pool! You need to come now!”

He was up and out of his chair in an instant, racing down the corridors, with Colin only just keeping up.  
As he entered the pool he said to the deputy wet,

“Why didn’t you dive in and help her?”

“Ah well I did think about that Mr Brittas...but I had this verruca come up on my foot this morning...and I know how vigilant you are about foot hygiene!”

“Colin!” he snapped,  
“If anything happens to her! I am holding you personally responsible!”

The pool manage now looked on the verge of crying.

“What the hell happened?” he asked the other women in the pool as he removed his blazer and kicked off his shoes.

“She said she was feeling a bit dizzy!” replied the woman closest to him.  
“She slipped and hit her head on the tile as she fell in the water. We can’t lift her!”

He could indeed see a lifeless red shape at the bottom of the pool.

The red costume...her favourite one.

Gordon Brittas launched himself into the pool, and swam down to the bottom.  
Gathering her up in his arms, her returned to the surface and waded towards the ladder.

She had a nasty gash on her forehead that was bleeding, but he didn’t care a toss for that right now. The thing he cared a lot more about at the moment was the fact that she wasn’t breathing.

He laid her gently down on the side of the pool, and climbed on top of her to commence resuscitation.

Michael came running in.

“Laura! Oh my god, Laura! What are you doing, Gordon? Get off her!”

He moved to take over the lifesaving process, but Brittas yelled at him.

“Are you first aid trained??”

“Well no...but”

“Then back the fuck off!” he spat, with the ferocity of a demon.

He wasn’t entirely sure why he had felt the need to act so aggressively towards the other man.  
Jealousy more than likely.

Michael did indeed back off, shocked more than anything by the foul language that had just come out of the mouth of the manager.  
Brittas began chest compressions, switching to mouth to mouth after every thirty.  
He forced as much oxygen into her lungs as he could manage, giving her absolutely every last bit of breath that he had. He was also trying to concentrate and make sure that he was firm enough with the compressions to stimulate her respiratory system, but not too firm that he caused damage to her unborn child.

“Come on, Laura,” he spoke softly.  
“Come on...don’t leave me...please don’t leave me.”

The irony was that she was leaving him, but at least she would still be in the physical world, there’s a chance that he could end up seeing her again.  
Plus, she wasn’t due to leave for another month. He still had time so see those beautiful eyes, still had time to witness that beautiful smile.

If she died...that would be it.

“Please Laura, please,” he begged as he slightly increased the force behind the compressions.  
“Don’t leave me like this.”  
The tears that were running down his cheeks, began to fall down onto her face and neck, where they quickly merged with the water already on her skin.

He could hear people talking around them. He could hear someone shouting about calling an ambulance, but it all just began to blur. All he could think about now was her.

“Mr Brittas, I think you should stop.”

He registered a hand on his shoulder. It was Gavin.

“No way!” he shouted.

“It’s been over forty five minutes, Mr Brittas. You need to stop.”

“Forty five minutes? Had he really been doing this for three quarters of an hour? His arms were only just starting to ache.  
He was only now truly grateful for all the hours he’d spent lifting weights.  
He wanted to be the one to bring her back.

And he wouldn’t stop, he wouldn’t ever stop. Not until he saw those beautiful green eyes open up and fix themselves on him.

“Mr Brittas, you really need..”

Suddenly there was a very loud cough, and the woman beneath him spewed up a fountain of water.

Relief instantly washed over him as he saw her eyes open up and focus on him.

“You..saved me...” she panted.

Their faces were so close and his mind was begging for one thing and one thing only.

‘Please kiss me...please kiss me...please kiss me...please’

He really thought she was going to, or maybe it was just wishful thinking.  
The moment was broken, however, by Michael shoving him off and stealing the kiss away from him.

After kissing her deeply, the American picked her up and carried her out of the pool, in the direction of the ambulance.

The Englishman followed on behind him, pushing through the crowd of people that had gathered.

He was slowed down along the way by staff members and customers, who wanted to congratulate the wonderful thing that he had just done.  
Compliments were the last thing he cared about right now.

When he finally made it out, Laura was sat in the back of the ambulance with a blanket round her shoulders, and a mug of steaming hot tea in one hand. He was pleased to see that her head had been patched up with a bandage.  
She was alone.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she replied. 

“What about the baby??”

‘HIS baby Gordon...Not yours...’

“They’ll check me over at the hospital, but everything seems to be ok.”

“Good...that’s good.”

There was an awkward pause. Despite having known the woman for years, he found that he was temporarily lost for words.

“I’m so glad you’re ok,” he said eventually.

“Thanks to you,” she smiled softly at him.

Then she got up and hugged him.  
Pulling back and looking up at him, it seemed to him as if she were momentarily mesmerised by something in his eyes.

“I really mean that...Thank you.”

He moved his lips a little closer to hers and shut his eyes...

“Laura honey! What are you doing standing up!”  
Michael gave Brittas a look that suggested he knew exactly what was about to happen between the manager and his wife.

He pulled her back to sit down in the ambulance, and laid one hand protectively on her shoulder.

Laura gave her manager one last look, before turning her attention back to her husband. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr Brittas.”

Gordon Brittas turned away, and tried his best to ignore the pain of his heart breaking in two.


End file.
